RadioShack to Sell Apple iPhone 4 with Sweetened Deal

The Apple iPhone 4 will go on sale at RadioShack, as well as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, AT&T and Apple online and retail stores beginning June 24. RadioShack will also begin taking preorders June 15 and allow customers to trade in older electronics toward their iPhone 4 purchase.

Apple has added RadioShack to its small cadre of retail partners who will begin offering the iPhone 4 June 24.
Following Apple CEO Steve Jobs' June 7 introduction of the iPhone 4,
Apple announced that newest smartphone will begin selling in Apple and
AT&T retail and online stores, as well as at Best Buy and Wal-Mart
stores. For those wanting to assure they have an iPhone 4 in hand June
24, Apple's Online Store will begin accepting order reservations in the
United States, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom on June
15.

AT&T and Best Buy will also begin taking preorders June 15, and as
of June 14, RadioShack had also gotten in the action. According to PC World, a RadioShack in Boston will begin taking preorders at 7 a.m.-making it a good bet for getting on the list.

On June 24, RadioShack will additionally be sweetening its iPhone deal
with a device turn-in program. Consumers purchasing an Apple iPhone 4
can bring in older electronics and put the devices' estimated values
toward an iPhone 4 purchase.

At a Brooklyn-area RadioShack, a sales representative named Shaquana
told eWEEK that only some electronics trade-ins will be allowed
in-store, and others will have to be arranged online. Devices that one
can safely trade-in at the store, she said, include "phones and game
consoles, chargers, old cameras and camcorders."While the iPhone 4 will retail for $199 for the 16GB model and $299
for the 32GB model, at Apple and AT&T online and retail stores,
AT&T announced June 7 that it will be offering its "best pricing"
to current iPhone customers who are eligible for an upgrade anytime in
2010.

"Individual iPhone voice and data plans now start at just $54.99 per
month (was previously $69.99) and FamilyTalk voice and data plans with
two iPhones start at just $89.99 per month (was $119.99). Our data
plans all include unlimited usage at more than 20,000 AT&T WiFi Hot
Spots in the U.S.," Bridges told eWEEK in an e-mail.

The exact language for upgrades, she added, is: "Any existing iPhone
customer eligible for an upgrade between [June 7] and the end of this
year will be eligible for our best pricing for iPhone 4, $199 and $299,
with a two-year term commitment."

The difference, she added, "is that what's important is iPhone
customers' current upgrade date...not when their contract expires. That's
better for customers, since many customers are upgrade-eligible well
before their contract expires."

On June 24, Apple will also begin offering its 8GB iPhone 3GS for $99,
and AT&T will offer the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 3GS for $159 and $199,
respectively-with a two-year commitment plus voice and data plans.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The text has been corrected to reflect that Best Buy, and not Wal-Mart, will be accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 4 beginning June 15.

Michelle Maisto has been covering the enterprise mobility space for a decade, beginning with Knowledge Management, Field Force Automation and eCRM, and most recently as the editor-in-chief of Mobile Enterprise magazine. She earned an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, and in her spare time obsesses about food. Her first book, The Gastronomy of Marriage, if forthcoming from Random House in September 2009.